Microsoft has released some of the source code for the software it uses to collect details of people's Wi-Fi hot spots, so that it can be examined for privacy implications.

In a blog post on Friday, Reid Kuhn, partner group program manager for the Windows Phone engineering team, said the publication of the code should demonstrate Microsoft's commitment to privacy and ensuring the protection of people's information.

The code released by Microsoft is part of that used in an activity it dubs "managed driving," whereby Microsoft uses cars to collect cell tower, Wi-Fi, and GPS data. The idea behind the mapping is to be able to provide faster and better-targeted location-based services to Windows Phone users.

However, Microsoft was also tracking the smartphones themselves, a practice it said in May it would stop. Apple was doing more-or-less the same thing to iPhone users, and even Android makes heavy use of location data culled from customers' handsets, although Google's mobile platform has always been more explicit about it.